


Suspension of Disbelief

by cartographicalspine



Category: Kimi ni Todoke | From Me to You
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2011-07-20
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5387021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't believe in many things, most of all herself. But while she reflects in the afternoon sun with the most unlikely of companions, she can't help but abandon a few of her inhibitions, just for awhile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suspension of Disbelief

Her feet tread a gentle course on the street’s weathered stones, until they had finally carried her far enough from Motoki’s group that she could stop her aimless wandering without feeling too embarrassed. It was a small juncture, the place where her darker, sloping path met the sun-filled street. She scanned the road before her with disinterest before letting her bags drop against the shadowed wall next to her, sinking down with them stiffly and resting her head in her hands.

Overhead the heat bubbled and frothed, but she could only think about how cold she felt inside.

“Ayane!”

She squinted a bit when she heard his voice, and only realized a moment later that she had turned her head to see him. The sun shone behind him starkly, rendering him a black silhouette to her eyes.

“Kent-”

“What happened?” he cut her off unthinkingly. He was close enough now that she could see his face a little better, shrouded in grey shadows as it was. “What are you doing here? Where’s Mogi?”

Ayane kept her expression guarded, considering which question she should try to answer first. It occurred to her that Kento had made it fairly easy to answer all of those questions at once, even if she withheld a complete, sincere answer.

“We broke up.”

Kento exclaimed, a strangled and soft sound that was supposed to mean “but why?”, and she didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t exactly certain she knew why, but it must have seemed especially strange to someone standing on the outside of a seemingly good relationship.

Had she ever actually told anyone what their dates were like? What they did when they went out?

“What happened?” he repeated breathlessly after an uncomfortable pause.

She stared determinedly at a spot on the ground between her loafers, thinking back to a different question of his, one that was easier to think about.

_What do you usually do?_

Oh, it made sense now, just focusing on that question. Their “dates” had been all one-sided affairs; Motoki had never attempted to share much of anything besides those kisses. She had tried not to pay too much attention to that, and now she was mentally kicking herself for not acting faster. He was only playing along like they were (she was) a game. He didn’t even like her from the start.

Forcing a chuckle, Ayane replied slowly, “Ah, nothing happened. Nothing at all.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. She felt nothing for Motoki, who had so suddenly asked her out right before the school trip, who had made her laugh on the plane while she tried to get to know him (and tried to get him to learn a bit about herself), who had been after very little in the end.

‘He never even walked me home once.’

Sawako’s smile surfaced in her thoughts, innocent and sweet.  _When did you start liking Mogi-kun?_

She thought about what she had told her friend once, about the way a kiss could just make your heart throb and steal your breath away and make you feel like you would explode from all those feelings in your chest.

Motoki’s kisses had felt like nothing.

Ayane cradled her head in her hands, feeling her heart sink emptily.

“Kento, you’ve had a lot of girlfriends, haven’t you?” she questioned delicately.

“You really have a bad impression of me.” Kento laughed uneasily, but he strode forward until she could feel his proximity in the heat. His bag dropped to the ground with a thump, and as he moved to sit down next to her, she blurted out, “Have you ever actually liked someone before?”

He froze, giving her a sidelong glance. Goodness, she was probably confusing him with the way she fluttered around all these matters without warning. “What?”

She couldn’t take those words back, and it was just as well. Ayane was glad it wasn’t Chizu or Sawako that she was admitting this to but she was not entirely sure that Kento was the right person to hear this. It didn’t matter now.

“People go out because they like each other,” she stated softly, feeling her hands itching to brush casually at her eyes. “But I’m not like that.”

The shadows grew around them as the sun moved lower in the sky, and still she didn’t look up. If she did, she would have to look at the confusion in his eyes, and maybe the pity as well. If he dared to turn any pity on her…

“I’ve never liked anyone…I’ve never with another person because of ‘love’.”

His stare was burning on her hot, clammy skin. It could also have been the heat. Tensely, she waited for his response.

“Ayane,” he said, for lack of anything else to say.

She was definitely blushing now.

‘Seeing people work so hard for love, for confessing…’

She remembered Chizu’s face when Toru had introduced his fiancée, and how she fought to keep a smiling face despite how crushed she must have felt. Watery eyes stared back at Sawako and Ayane, and yet Chizu continued shoveling food in her mouth desperately, coping in the only way she knew.

Ayane had been certain that it had been over when her friend finally broke down and vented (after taking it out on Ryu first), but then Chizu had surprised her greatly: she took a chance and saw Toru one last time. 

 _I already know his answer._  She had always believed that Toru only saw her as a little sister, but she refused to give up. Under the first snowfall of the year, Chizu followed him with a brave smile and confessed, and then turned around and congratulated him despite having lost him completely.

Sawako had struggled too, not believing (never believing) that Kazehaya returned her feelings, though her problems had existed mostly in her mind. She had always insisted she was happier like  
that. Complacent.

And then, at the festival…Sawako had torn away from the teeming crowds, pushing past her maze of doubts and false fears, and she had said all of the feelings she had been hiding because of her incredulity. Her eyes had shined with determination, and Ayane remembered feeling just a little shocked at her words.  _It doesn’t matter who Kazehaya likes._

They had taken the chance she had never once been moved to take, suspending their disbelief and confessing to someone special to them…and they had loved.

‘I can’t help…’ He throat tightened. ‘I can’t help but wonder if I could do that too.’

There was where her doubt lay.

‘I’m wondering if it would be possible for someone to muster up enough courage to confess to me...and if I could love them back.’

Somewhere inside of her, Ayane suspected that the answer to her musings was a firm “no”.

_I’m not like them…I’m fundamentally different from them._

Kento drew in a sharp breath.

“That’s not it,” she choked, bringing a hand to her forehead as her vision grew blurry. “Nothing is wrong.”

She heard Kento shift beside her worriedly, and her desperation increased. Here was a boy who couldn’t even take his own relationships seriously, and she had honestly just sought advice (not entirely outright) from him. Why was it that she always admitted her own faults in front of the most inappropriate people?

Her tears began to fall faster. “It’s not because...of something sad that I…”

She trailed off, trying to stop herself from breaking down completely.

He closed the distance between them, throwing his arms around her and pulling her toward him. Ayane noted vaguely that she should have been surprised at this stunning show of compassion from him, or at most affronted, but all she was capable of was continuing her broken explanation into her hands.

“…I already told you,” she protested weakly, “I’m fine.”

He remained silent while she attempted to regain her composure. If he would only open his big mouth then she could be properly angry at him and pull herself together. Instead, she cried harder and wiped uselessly at her eyes.

‘It’s not possible for me to believe that I can care about someone like they do, and somehow…it makes me feel hollow inside.’

If he would only give her an excuse to slap him away…

“Why won’t you?” she hiccupped, turning to face him head on. “Why won’t you say anything?”

His arms were loosely wrapped around her shoulders, and it felt like the most sincere gesture in the world at the moment that she ended up leaning toward him unconsciously, making no effort to hide her tears anymore.

And then it became a proper hug, comfortable and tight and safe, and his hands smoothed her hair gently while she cried. To her surprise, it didn’t feel as unnatural as she had imagined it would be. It was more soothing than any words he could have come up with (and needless to say, she doubted he knew what to say to a sobbing girl), and she willfully let her doubt wash away with her tears, deciding that she could distrust Kento and his motives some other time.

Besides—she smiled woefully at his ruined shirt, hoping he wouldn’t be too upset—she owed him that much, at least.  
  



End file.
